Remember a day when it all went wrong? I’m bet you have one readily in mind. A startling discovery. An anguishing interruption. Or an abrupt ending you never saw coming.
Then, it seemed every subsequent event determinedly decided to follow suit.
How did you feel a few hours in? Angry and ready to fight? Deliriously frustrated and prepared to run? Or overwhelmed, not sure what to do?
Peter offers sound, even simple advice in 1 Peter 5:7. “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” (NIV)
It’s too simple. Just hand it all over to God and let Him sort it out? That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Wish it were so easy to do.
But, there actually is something to it.
Handing it over is not exactly my knee-jerk response. No, I actually often have to go through a few options on my own and acknowledge I really have no good answers or grand ideas on how on earth to fix this, before I recall I should just give it to God.
Yet, when I do, He always delivers.
Even in times when frustrations mount, emotions soar and I am physically ill from the fallout.
He wants to care for our problems.
Why?
Because He loves us.
And because He loves us, He wants to help us. He wants to help us with our problems. He wants to help us with all things that make us anxious, cause us concern, and provoke us to worry and turn over issues in our minds again and again.
Our Lord is truly larger than our problems. Even the ones that loom over us.
Sometimes He doesn’t solve them as we might. Sometimes He isn’t miraculously fixing the situation but He helps us find the correct lens through which to view the scenario. Sometimes He does author a miracle right then and there. Sometimes, we need to wait a bit for resolution.
But regardless when the answer comes, He does tell us to cast our cares on Him. Cast. Not cast and reel back in. Just cast. Throw our line of problems and challenges and let it plop! At His feet.
He’s got it.
He will handle it.
We can trust He knows what to do with it.
If you’re like me, that is a challenge. Laying it at His feet. Laying it and leaving it. I want to bend down and snatch it back up, as if I forgot something that could possibly solve the scenario and then God wouldn’t have to address it.
But I have found, He wants me to trust Him. He wants me to lay it there. He wants me to leave it. He wants me to pray about it. He wants me to bask in His care and leave the anxiety behind.
And if you, like me, struggle with how on earth to make laying and leaving problems at His feet a habit, will you join me in prayer for just that?
Prayer: Dear Lord, You know. You know my burdens and challenges and hopes and dreams. You know my anxieties and my habits. You also know where I am trying to build my faith. Please help with that. Help me grow and trust in You. In Jesus’s name, Amen.